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This article presents a mixed-methods study that examined leadership program graduates' self-assessments as they specifically related to the knowledge, performance, and disposition indicators of the Interstate School Leader Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standard 5 (1996). This ISLLC standard is generally referred to as the "ethics standard" by program faculty. The study revealed significantly different levels of ethical development between two program graduate groups: non-practicing (emerging) and practicing school administrators. Volunteer participants included 34 student graduates who were either non-practicing or practicing administrators from an education specialist program at a midwestern university. The independent samples t-tests revealed a significant difference in the evidence of ethical standards between practicing administrators and non-administrators. The results of this study support the notion that one cannot practice what is not known or valued. Theory and practice of ethical leadership are more fully developed as scaffolding and ontology for practicing administrator graduates than for emerging administrator graduates. Hence, emerging administrator graduates of this program are disadvantaged on learning outcomes for ISSLC Standard 5. In addition, this study highlights that a missing element in the preparation of the study's participants in both groups has been the fostering of diversity awareness and appreciation. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

We all have stories--beautiful and ugly stories--neat ending and never ending stories. When personal narratives, the stories that come closest to the human experience, are used as pedagogy, they can be windows offering views of different worlds and people. In this way, personal narratives become lanterns that illuminate the real and imagined fences that divide us as human beings. The intention of this article is to give an account of both how and why I use personal narrative as a pedagogical method to teach diversity and social justice.

The advantages of transformative learning approaches in graduate education parallel the tenets of mentoring and lifelong learning. Under this theoretical framework, adult student achievement in leadership programming can be assessed as a developmental and individualized process. The mixed methods study presented here illustrates that it is possible to measure knowledge construction, disposition development and performance acquisition from the classroom to leadership practice through taxonomy use. The purpose of the study is to use a standards-based taxonomy to understand the effectiveness of an educational leadership graduate degree program of two student subgroups. Based on transformative and lifelong learning theories that emphasize understanding student learning processes, students' holistic achievement is examined in order to identify differences in student subgroup learning outcomes. The taxonomical approach used to evaluate student achievement in this study is helpful in gaining a phenomenological perspective of learning processes when evaluating the appropriateness of program design, teaching methodology and program content. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

We all have stories--beautiful and ugly stories--neat ending and never ending stories. When personal narratives, the stories that come closest to the human experience, are used as pedagogy, they can be windows offering views of different worlds and people. In this way, personal narratives become lanterns that illuminate the real and imagined fences that divide us as human beings. The intention of this article is to give an account of both how and why I use personal narrative as a pedagogical method to teach diversity and social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]